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Phys Ed: The Men Who Stare at Screens

By Gretchen Reynolds July 14, 2010 12:01 amJuly 14, 2010 12:01 am

David De Lossy/Getty Images

In 1982, researchers affiliated with the Cooper Institute in Dallas surveyed a large group of well-educated, affluent men. The researchers were interested in the men’s exercise habits, but they also asked, almost incidentally, about their indolence. Specifically, they inquired about how many hours each day the men spent watching television or sitting in a car. (This was before you could do both at once.) Over the years, the survey’s main results were used to reinforce a growing body of science about the health benefits of regular exercise.

But the information about the amount of time the men spent being inactive remained largely unexplored. Recently, however, scientists from the University of South Carolina and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., parsed the full data. In a study published in May in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, they reported that, to no one’s surprise, the men who sat the most had the greatest risk of heart problems. Men who spent more than 23 hours a week watching TV and sitting in their cars (as passengers or as drivers) had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less. What was unexpected was that many of the men who sat long hours and developed heart problems also exercised. Quite a few of them said they did so regularly and led active lifestyles. The men worked out, then sat in cars and in front of televisions for hours, and their risk of heart disease soared, despite the exercise. Their workouts did not counteract the ill effects of sitting.

Most of us have heard that sitting is unhealthy. But many of us also have discounted the warnings, since we spend our lunch hours conscientiously visiting the gym. We consider ourselves sufficiently active. But then we drive back to the office, settle at our desks and sit for the rest of the day. We are, in a phrase adopted by physiologists, ‘‘active couch potatoes.’’

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The amount of time that most Americans spend being inactive has risen steadily in recent decades. A 2009 editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reported that, on average, adults spend more than nine hours a day in oxymoronic ‘‘sedentary activities.’’ For studies like these, scientists categorize activities by the number of METs they demand. A MET, or metabolic equivalent of task, is a measure of energy, with one MET being the amount of energy you burn lying down for one minute. Sedentary behaviors demand one to one and a half METs, or very little exertion.

Decades ago, before the advent of computers, plasma TVs and Roombas, people spent more time completing ‘‘light-intensity activities,’’ which require between one and a half and three METs. Most ‘‘home activities,’’ like mopping, cooking and changing light bulbs, demand between two and three METs. (One exception is ‘‘butchering animals,’’ a six-MET activity, according to a bogglingly comprehensive compilation from 2000 of the METs associated with different activities.) Nowadays, few of us accumulate much light-intensity activity. We’ve replaced those hours with sitting.

The physiological consequences are only slowly being untangled. In a number of recent animal studies, when rats or mice were not allowed to amble normally around in their cages, they rapidly developed unhealthy cellular changes in their muscles. The animals showed signs of insulin resistance and had higher levels of fatty acids in their blood. Scientists believe the changes are caused by a lack of muscular contractions. If you sit for long hours, you experience no ‘‘isometric contraction of the antigravity (postural) muscles,’’ according to an overview of the consequences of inactivity published this month in Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews. Your muscles, unused for hours at a time, change in subtle fashion, and as a result, your risk for heart disease, diabetes and other diseases can rise.

Regular workout sessions do not appear to fully undo the effects of prolonged sitting. ‘‘There seem to be different pathways’’ involved in the beneficial physiological effects of exercising and the deleterious impacts of sitting, says Tatiana Warren, a graduate student in exercise science at the University of South Carolina and the lead author of the study of men who sat too much. ‘‘One does not undo the other,’’ she says.

You can, however, ameliorate the dangers of inactivity with several easy steps — actual steps. ‘‘Look for ways to decrease physical inactivity,’’ Ms. Warren says, beyond 30-minute bouts of jogging or structured exercise. Stand up. Pace around your office. Get off the couch and grab a mop or change a light bulb the next time you watch ‘‘Dancing With the Stars.’’

Great article. Interesting to know that the time spent working out does not counteract inactivity. As our lifestyles become less active we all need to consciously consider how to include activity throughout our day.

Amazing article excerpts:
** Their workouts did not counteract the ill effects of sitting.
** When rats or mice were not allowed to amble normally around in their cages, they rapidly developed unhealthy cellular changes in their muscles.
** Regular workout sessions do not appear to fully undo the effects of prolonged sitting.**

Thank you for this exotic pile of research ordure. You — that is the pea-brained hippogriffs who designed these studies — have managed to finagle reality into some existential nightmare that might make even a dour, gymless rat like Jean Paul-Sartre collapse in despair — even though he was already in despair. Despair squared! Cubed! Mega-Cubed. We’re talkin’ despair.
Any decent supermax Prison Guard (surely comparable in moral dignity to the average researcher sited here) could tell you that if you cage a guy for 23 hours a day and then let him out to exercise only to pace on a doily for an hour then Mr. Man (sexist pigs!! where are the comparable women’s studies!!) won’t be superfit. Uh, duh?
Of course it ALL depends on length of time “sitting” vs. “working out.” Do they really expect us to parse from these findings that a 23-hour workout following an hour of couch potatoing will not offset the physical effects? We have a technical term to refer to such stacked research: lame.
Maybe participants in the studies were forced to watch endless re-runs of “Petticoat Junction” followed by a “workout’ that consisted of bench pressing a case of Almond Joys into their mouth a then a drive in high-speed bumper-to-bumper in Los Angeles traffic for two hours before arriving home only to be flogged with a garden hose by their miserable spouse and given a bowl of steam for dinner followed by a short, brutish sleep on a bed of nails?
How about some fitness common sense rather than absurd studies?
Some ideas:
1. Don’t spend endless hours sitting staring at a computer screen reading inane comments like this one.
2. Move your butt, an all other parts of your body connected.
3. Get a stand-up computer desk where you can boogaloo while you multitask your fascinating array of IM’s, emails, stock tickers, porn, tweets, twits, nits and lice.
4. Stop eating so much crappy food. Or if you can come up with a worthy cause just plain go on a Ghandi-like hunger strike until your goal is accomplished — or until you reach your BMI. [Note: Best choose some other “goal” besides independence for India as Ghandi seems to have pulled that off.]
5. Give it a go. Then, for the love of rats, give it a rest.

Interesting though I would like to see a breakdown of those who are overweight and not overweight in the studies. Something tells me the skinny guys who sit around half of the day are not at the same risk for heart disease as the fat.

The abstract of the paper seems very different than how it is portrayed in your column. From the abstract:

CONCLUSION: In men, riding in a car and combined time spent in these two sedentary behaviors were significant CVD mortality predictors. In addition, high levels of physical activity were related to notably lower rates of CVD death even in the presence of high levels of sedentary behavior.

Gretchen Reynolds responds: I can understand some of the confusion about the results of this study, since the authors do conclude that physical activity reduces heart disease risk—which it does. But the authors also write (and I quote): “Recent findings suggest that physiologic mechanisms associated with excessive sedentary behavior are different than the physiologic benefits of regular exercise. This may help to partially explain the elevated risk of CVD mortality noted in physically active men who also demonstrated high levels of total sedentary behavior in the current study.” In other words, despite being physically active, men in the study had an increased risk of dying of heart disease if they spent long hours sitting.

That’s exactly what many people are, “active couch potatoes”. So many people think that because they went to the gym for an hour, they can just sit away the rest of their day. America has become all about convenience and instant gratification. With the touch of a button, we can “cook” a full-course, already prepared (almost certainly unhealthy) meal, requiring little more movement than walking to the microwave. We no longer walk nearly as many places, make our clothes, food, etc…Heck, we don’t even have to flush the toilet anymore. If we could move backwards a little and start using our own hands, moving towards finding joy in actually producing our own objects from start to finish once again, we’d be a lot healthier nation.

There is no mention of the type of exercise performed. HIIT or PACE types of exercise need to be performed to counteract the effects that a sedentary lifestyle have on the heart muscle. The typical “cardio” workout is really an endurance workout and only compounds the issue.

The more I learn about sitting, the more shocked I become. If you think about things in evolutionary terms, it’s not surprising that humans need to keep moving to stay in shape. We’re not really designed to sit for so long. (Unfortunately, I do far too often!) This article also makes me wonder about whether this issue may be a reason women’s life expectancies are typically longer than men’s! (silly, I know, but it’s a thought!)

I exercise a lot, but my work as an editor could potentially have me in a chair in front of a screen for 8 hours a day. Five years ago I switched to a standing desk, a transition that was much easier than I expected. During the day, I’m able to constantly shift my stance, do toe lifts, stretch, and just generally keep moving. Previous back issues (some originating from pressure on the sciatic nerve, caused by sitting) rarely bother me now. I thoroughly recommend this approach. Just be sure to make the set-up ergonomic — screen and keyboard at right height.

Get up and walk around a bit once an hour; you’re not supposed to stare at a screen uninterrupted anyway. Stretch your legs. When you get home, do your own housework, yard work, etc., instead of underpaying someone from the Third World to do it. Eat real food, not prepackaged overprocessed sugar+fat trash, and eat mindfully — preferably only at proper sit-down meals. Oh, and do go to the gym anyway, just for fun.

Occupation has a critical effect on one’s health. What I realized in my 50’s, is that some blue-collar jobs (janitor, carpenter, plumber) were much healthier than white-collar office jobs (accountant, financial whiz, PC programmer). The latter group would at times sit for 10-12 hours straight. By the time you are 60, all that sitting and straining catches up to you.

I’m always surprised at the strong reactions to these studies. What’s wrong with finding that there’s empirical evidence that being too sedentary can’t be fully offset by intense physical activity? It’s not saying you can’t watch lots of TV, it’s just saying you’re better off if you do less of your TV watching sitting down. These articles have helped me develop the habit of standing while I read, which is an easy adaptation to make from this research. Though with the recent heatwave I’ve been limited by my need not to stray away from my fan which has required me to sit rather more.